A Northern Ireland construction firm is beginning work worth £45m in England.

Lagan Construction will be completing infrastructure works at a new waste energy plant being developed near Ipswich.

The contract was awarded by recycling and resource management company, SITA UK, in October 2010 to CNIM/Lagan as part of a £1bn deal with Suffolk County Council to develop a facility to manage the county’s residual household waste. Lagan Construction will work with their French-based process partner, CNIM, on the project at Great Blakenham which has an overall construction value of £150m.

Work is expected to start on site in early 2012, with the facility likely to be up and running by December 2014.

The plant will feature a visitor centre, a landscaped wetland area and an on-site ash processing facility.

Suffolk County Council estimates the contract will create |savings of £350m in additional |expenditure over the 25-year |period, as well as generating |sufficient electricity to power 30,000 homes and saving the equivalent of 75,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.

“We are delighted to have won this prestigious contract and look forward to working with our joint venture partner, CNIM, in delivering this state-of-the-art energy from waste facility for SITA UK and Suffolk County Council,” he said.

Last year Lagan was chosen to deliver a multi-million pound renewable energy project in Scotland.

The firm is to help build a new wood pellet and biomass power plant at Girvan for low-carbon energy company, Land Energy.

In a UK first, wood pelleting and a special type of power turbine, which runs on waste heat, are being brought together.

The firm has also been selected to deliver £11.5m of flood defences for City of Edinburgh Council and is taking part in a £8.7m improvement scheme at Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington DC.